I’m going to praise myself, and in doing so also praise my teachers.
To paraphrase former Trump administration flunky Anthony Scaramucci(Or however you spell his last name) he said “Steve Bannon sucks his own dick.”
Well I don’t mean to suck my own dick, but most people I teach or spar with me say I throw off their rhythm. Many people are very gun shy to throw at me, and they often say they are afraid to throw combinations when infront of me. And when they do, they’re usually only short ones.
I thought about why that is, and I realized it came back to one of the first lessons I learned from my Uechi-Ryu teacher Rick Wilson and my Taiji teacher who is also a Uechi guy, also named Rick but another Rick. Rick Bottomly.
(Lot’s of Rick’s around here huh?)
Both of them taught to never let someone more than one or two punches, never let any combination or volume begin. Cut it off right away. Mostly they taught this in the sense of interrupting the strike while they strike(Sen no Sen) or to counter right after the first, don’t wait for the second (Go no sen, this choice is not the preferred one)
They emphasized this by doing a drill where we interrupt strikes after the first strike, then we wait for a second and interupt that, then wait for a third and interupt that, then a fourth.
What I learn is the longer you let the punches pile on, the harder it is to turn things around. As a result it was ingrained in my head every attack my opponent throws is an opportunity, but also something I must shut down as soon as possible.
They often taught to prevent this by a concept to always attack while evading. They didn’t call it sen no sen, but that’s what it basically was.
I honestly can’t stand Connor these days, which is sad since he’s a good fighter. But what he did to Aldo is stop hitting/Sen no sen. He stopped Aldo before he could get started, because if McGregor did not do that, he could risk being purely reactive and defensive(Defensive mindset)
The results are not always so dramatic as McGregor and Aldo, but it makes people very hesitant, as they harder they throw, often the harder the counter comes in.
Thing is this isn’t what usually happen in most kickboxing exchanges.
Usually the energy of a kickboxing match is one guy throws a combination, then gets the fuck out before the other guy counters, which causes the opponent to push the attack and there is covering, and it goes back and forth.
It’s usually ‘you go, I go’ a back and forth of some kind. Someone loses when a strike goes through from a combination. But the combinations being executed in full are common.
Why is this so common in most forms of kickboxing?
My first answer is that it takes time and patience to learn to halt combinations and interrupt strikes. It’s the hardest of the major timings to master, and it often is more of a skill thing than a good work out when training it. It can be frustrating, it is in some ways ‘unnatural’ though I don’t like ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ to dictate learning all the time, it should only inform it.
(Look up the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ in logic)
The second reason is that the ability to interrupt is not always there, especially the first punch. Sometimes the fucker is just that fast and you have to get out, parry, or wait for the second or third punch to interrupt. More often you don’t have the timing down, and you’re a little overwhelmed, so you can only cover, that’s one reason for back and forth ‘you go’ and ‘i go’ exchanges.
Third explanation is that unless you’ve worked your defense to be second nature, people can’t focus on attacking without getting hit themselves. They often don’t have good defense, they have to ‘switch’ to a defensive mindset, instead of having their defense so well trained they can focus on attack.
(Having good defense is not the same as a defensive mindset. Good defense is a virtue, defensive mindset is a liability.)
The forth explanation is that it’s a skill often associated to point Karate, and let’s face it, Karate has through it’s own cultural faults earned a bad reputation for fighting.
You put most karate people in front of a kickboxer or Thai boxer, and most will get in and tap the fighter, while when the kickboxer or boxer begins to attack, the karate guy tries to run away and bat punches out of the way with their chin high and are completely not used to continous fighting.
But that’s the thing, the problem with point karate was never the fact they intercept punches and strikes with their own, that’s actually a very good thing. It’s the fact they don’t commit to strikes, only touches and IS NOT CONTINOUS.
But that doesn’t mean the interception is not useful in continuous fighting, and indeed shows up. People like Machida do this in MMA often, Henry Cejudo said he brought in Karate guys for his own striking and he lights people up, Robert Whittaker embarrassed good kickboxers in the UFC using this. Unlike the olympic style Karate people, they don’t touch, they hit, and they don’t stop after interrupting, they keep going or get the fuck out of the way.
Now all these guys either have a karate background, and in Cejudo case he brought some people in.
But honestly boxers do this a the time, and so do certain thai boxers as well.
And to take the steam away from point karate tactics, good boxers have done this plenty of time. THey don’t do it all the time, because the guy punching isn’t a moron, but it’s very often there in almost every fighting system.
I dare say, all the best strikers in combat sports do both the ‘you go and I go’ and the ‘interrupt’
Anderson silva certainly did this and he was no karate guy.
In the second clip Anderson waited until three punches before stopping the attack pressure, and it was because his defense is a natural one, he can have an attack mindset because he knows he can rely on his movement and covers.
Ali had defense good enough to sit on the ropes and let people spam punches, and none touched him.
But usually Ali didn’t let that happen, he basically looked to hit whenever possible.
Like I highlighted above, his defense was so damn good, that every punch most of his opponents threw at him were openings, they actually helped him more than hindered him.
Tyson did this as well.
To stop sucking my own dick
Well I am not Steve Bannon, I don’t like sucking my own dick. And I’ll tell you why.
If I can’t interrupt combinations, I tend to work harder than I have to, and I gas. Yes usually I can keep people from starting up pressure by intercepting with my own strikes, but some guys, young fit fast light guys and pro-fighters can often strike with such good footwork and speed that I can’t intercept the combinations, and they move in and out very swiftly.
Like I said, it’s easier said than done, and if fighting were so easily solved, there would not be different fighting styles and approaches even within the same arts and combat sports. Fighting is compclicated, whether t3h d3&dl3y streets or if it’s a single combat sport. There is so many variation in what people do and how they do it.
So I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t have to be a ‘back and forth’ exchange of combinations, you can make it very hard to get combinations going.
But that’s assuming you have the skills and ability to do it, and even if you do, that is assuming it will work on the person or people in front of you. Sometimes that’s not what happens.
And when you can’t interrupt, maybe ‘you go, I go’ is better than nothing.
Maybe I can get fit and start training like a professional kickboxer or boxer or MMA fighter and get the reflexes and attributes to make it work on the pro-fighters that make sen no sen/intercepting strikes so damn hard.
But the fact is I’m busy with a family and I have mental health problems that make such a lifestyle difficult.
And i realize other people have similar situations, so while I will always teach intercepting combinations instead of back and forth, I don’t begrudge people for doing it. I do teach some drills that help with that style of fighting too, and sometimes even I had to do the whole “you go, I go” thing. It’s just not my preference.
So take from this what you will.
Also Steve Bannon, if you’re reading this, stop sucking your own dick.
Please stop being racist.
What's the deal with Adeel? 